Frisco Kid : Some piers are a little 'mallish,' but the city rates

By SHARON BOORSTIN

Sept. 1, 1996 12 AM PT

SAN FRANCISCO —

I recently read some statistics that placed Disney World, in Florida, and Disneyland as the first and second most popular amusement attractions in the U.S. That didn’t surprise me, but the attraction listed as No. 3 three did: Pier 39 in San Francisco. I’d only been to Pier 39 once, years ago, and found it to be more a shopping-mall-on-a-pier than an amusement attraction. When I learned that in April Pier 39 had opened UnderWater World, billed as “America’s first and only diver’s-eye-view aquarium,” I thought it would be a good excuse to introduce my 12-year-old son, Adam, to San Francisco. It’s known as an adult heartthrob, but we discovered that the city’s compact and distinctive neighborhoods make it a natural for children.

As if to prove the cliche, “everyone’s favorite American city,” there were hundreds of tourists waiting in line at the Market Street cable car turnaround when Adam, my husband, Paul, and I arrived on a Saturday morning in midsummer. Determined to give Adam the fabled trolley ride he’d seen in umpteen movies, we climbed to the top of Nob Hill. There, as I’d suspected, we were able to squeeze onto a passing cable car that was letting off passengers. As the cable car lurched down one incredibly steep hill after another toward Fisherman’s Wharf, I watched Adam’s eyes widen in amazement and his lips broaden into a smile, his mind, I’m sure, spinning fantasies of runaway cable cars. On a scale of 1 to 10, he gave the experience a 9.

I have vivid memories of eating fresh Dungeness crab at an outdoor seafood stand and looking through a telescope at Alcatraz on my first visit to Fisherman’s Wharf when I was Adam’s age. Today, the seafood stands and telescopes are still there, but they are surrounded by a hodgepodge of shops selling souvenirs and T-shirts with such logos as “Alcatraz Swim Team.” Adam’s hopes of taking a cruise to the famous “Rock,” which was visible through the lifting fog, were dashed because tickets were sold out for the next three days. He was appeased by an acrobatic turn on what is best described as a “bungee trampoline” near the entrance to Pier 39. In Adam’s opinion, it was a definite 10.

Seeing Pier 39 a second time, I’m still surprised that it attracts the visitors it’s reputed to--for unlike Disney World and Disneyland, it lacks both a theme and a theme park’s thrill rides. What it does offer is over 100 shops selling everything from glass tchotchkes to NFL merchandise, innumerable snack bars and restaurants, plus video game arcades, a carousel, a stage for street performers, a Cinemax theater, a jolting cinema “turbo ride” akin to Disneyland’s “Star Tours” and bumper cars. And now, it has UnderWater World. We paid our $12.95 each, hooked audiocassette machines over our shoulders, and, as our audio guide led the way, prepared to “dive.”

In reality, what we did was stand for 30 minutes on a moving sidewalk that snakes through a 300-foot-long acrylic tube beneath two aquariums, the first stocked with herring, perch, starfish, smelts, sardines and the occasional halibut, the second with sturgeon, bat rays and moderately sized leopard, six-gill and seven-gill sharks--all native to San Francisco Bay. The most exciting thing about being in UnderWater World was when a bat ray or shark would skim over the acrylic ceiling just above our heads, allowing us a unique view of its underside and mouth. The least exciting aspect was listening to the quasi-educational audio narration, which included a discussion of sharks against a background of screaming women’s voices, and a comparison of life in a kelp forest to that in a high-rise building. When we emerged from UnderWater World, Adam gave it a 5, and compared it to the Shark Encounter at San Diego’s Sea World, which also features a moving sidewalk through an acrylic tube beneath an aquarium. The walk-through may be shorter at Shark Encounter, he admitted, but the aquarium there is filled with huge--and many man-eating--sharks.

Before leaving Fisherman’s Wharf, however, we stumbled upon two discoveries that made the trip worthwhile. The first was K Dock, on the west side of Pier 39. For some mysterious reason, beginning in 1990, California sea lions began gathering here in droves to lounge, one furry body on top of another, on wooden rafts. Adam was so fascinated by the playful and noisy sea mammals that we stayed glued to the railing watching them--some not more than 20 feet away--for almost an hour, twice the time we’d spent in UnderWater World. And it was free.

Then, for only $7 per family, we explored the historic sailing ships moored at Hyde Street Pier, on the other side of Fisherman’s Wharf from Pier 39. (It is a National Historic Park, U.S. park rangers and all.) On the 256-foot-long Balclutha, a steel-hulled square-rigger that once sailed from California to Europe around Cape Horn, Adam poked around in the crew’s quarters, where posted excerpts from sailors’ memoirs describe the drama of surviving a storm at sea. I preferred the lavish captain’s quarters, with its red velvet love seats and burnished mahogany tables.

Eager to visit another area that is part of the San Francisco legend, we took Adam to North Beach for dinner. The literary beacon, City Lights Bookstore, is still open, as are a few of the coffeehouses once haunted by the Beats. Unfortunately, some of the area has become as seedy as New York’s Times Square, before Times Square began its recent cleanup effort. A San Francisco foodie friend had recommended that we dine at Rose Pistola, the new North Beach restaurant where Reed Hearon, formerly of San Francisco’s cutting-edge Lulu, is the chef. The handsomely modern spot on Columbus Street, with its open kitchen, wood-burning pizza oven and Italian-accented menu, was full of well-dressed customers who seemed to be residents, not tourists (no “Alcatraz Swim Team” T-shirts here). Adam enjoyed his pork chop and Paul adored his steak, but I was disappointed by a bowl of cioppino with a quarter-inch layer of olive oil floating on top. The waiter assured me that it was good quality extra-virgin olive oil, but that didn’t dissuade me from sending it back.

I had reserved a room at the Sir Francis Drake because the hotel offers a special discount to UnderWater World ticket-holders. (As it turned out, I got an even better AAA discount.) Adam was impressed by the hotel’s ornate “Old San Francisco” lobby; I was impressed that we were able to get a spacious, newly redecorated room in the heart of the city for $130. The real advantage of staying at the Drake, it turned out, was that Paul and I were able to enjoy a taste of the city’s romance. With Adam happily tucked into bed in our room, TV zapper in hand, we took the elevator up to the 21st floor rooftop lounge, known for its wraparound windows. We danced to live music, the city lights twinkling all around.

Sunday morning, we awoke to ideal San Francisco weather: blue skies and a cool breeze. By now, Adam was accustomed to the hills. In fact, he liked the challenge of scaling the ones that are so steep they have built-in stairs. We made our way to Grant Avenue, once the heart of Chinatown, which I was disappointed to find overrun with T-shirt and souvenir shops. But we discovered an area around Stockton Street where you can walk for blocks and blocks and easily imagine that you’re in Hong Kong. We wandered from shop to shop, where Chinese-speaking customers were buying everything from glistening Peking ducks, dried mushrooms and herbal medicines, to ginseng. In one shop Adam watched a butcher cleave a whole barbecued pig in half with one chop.

For the ultimate Chinatown experience, we took Adam to Gold Mountain, a Chinese restaurant on Broadway that my foodie friend had recommended, for dim sum. We were the only non-Chinese-speaking family there. A parade of waitresses pushed metal trolleys through the crowded room, offering pork buns, steamed shrimp and fried taro dumplings, pot stickers, sesame seed balls and hot pepper chicken feet. The waitress watched, amused, when Adam picked up a slippery, pink-sauced chicken foot with his chopsticks. He took a bite. “Not a lot of meat,” he proclaimed, proud of his daring, “but tasty.” Chalk up another 10.

Boorstin is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.

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Budget for Three

United Shuttle @ $117: $351.00

Sir Francis Drake Hotel: $145.00

Lunch, Fisherman’s Wharf: $17.75

Bungee trampoline: $6.00

UnderWater World tickets: $38.85

Hyde Street Pier: $7.00

Dinner, Rose Pistola: $45.00

Dim sum brunch: $23.00

Taxis and cable cars: $40.00